What the US-led coalition did to Syria’s Raqqa is comparable to the infamous Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, the Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Gen. Igor Konashenkov said, adding that the allies may be rushing to pour money into Raqqa to cover up the aftermath.

Raqqa, which has served as the Syrian stronghold of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) since January 2014, was seized by the US-backed group Syrian Democratic Forces earlier this week.

Some 80 percent of residential buildings in the city are estimated to have been rendered uninhabitable during the fighting, which involved massive bombardment by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes and artillery shelling.

“Raqqa’s fate calls to mind that of Dresden in 1945, leveled by the US-British bombings,” Konashenkov added, referring to the controversial campaign reaching a peak in February 1945, during which American and British bombers dropped over 3,900 tons of bombs on the Nazi-controlled German city, killing some 25,000 civilians and destroying much of its center… … …

Major war games between Russia and Belarus continued on Friday, despite concern from some NATO members. The Zapad 2017 drills have sparked criticism among members of the Western military alliance and in neighboring countries over a lack of transparency about the exercises.

Joint military drills between Russia and Belarus are well underway. Some Western officials have expressed concern over what they see as a threat to European security. Journalist Neil Clark says it’s not Russia and Belarus that have acted aggressively.

The Flemish Father Daniël Maes (78) lives in Syria in the sixth-century-old Mar Yakub monastery in the city of Qara, 90 kilometers north of the capital Damascus. Father Daniel has been a witness to the “civil war” and according to him, Western reports on the conflict in Syria are very misleading. In short: “the Americans and their allies want to completely ruin the country”.

Father Daniel: “The idea that a popular uprising took place against President Assad is completely false. I’ve been in Qara since 2010 and I have seen with my own eyes how agitators from outside Syria organized protests against the government and recruited young people. That was filmed and aired by Al Jazeera to give the impression that a rebellion was taking place. Murders were committed by foreign terrorists, against the Sunni and Christian communities, in an effort to sow religious and ethnic discord among the Syrian people. While in my experience, the Syrian people were actually very united”.

Father Daniel: Before the war, this was a harmonious country: a secular state in which different religious communities lived side by side peacefully. There was hardly any poverty, education was free, and health care was good. It was only not possible to freely express your political views. But most people did not care about that.”

Father Daniel: When thousands of terrorists settled in Qara, we became afraid for our lives. They came from the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Turkey, Libya, there were many Chechens. They formed a foreign occupation force, all allied to al-Qaeda and other terrorists. Armed to the teeth by the West and their allies with the intention to act against us, they literally said: “This country belongs to us now.” Often, they were drugged, they fought each other, in the evening they fired randomly. We had to hide in the crypts of the monastery for a long time. When the Syrian army chased them away, everybody was happy………………..

Behind the Headlines: NATO Slaughter – James and Joanne Moriarty expose the truth about what happened in Libya. If you were a journalist in Libya during this time you were relatively safe; not because these animals respected journalists as neutral observers, but because the journalists were on their side. The Moriartys have evidence of embedded journalists, not least from Qatar-owned Al Jazeera, whose staff were among the terrorists from day one, personally calling in airstrikes and working side-by-side with the terrorists……………………………

26/27 April 2017: Defense Ministers of 24 countries, Heads of seven international organizations, and other guests had gathered in Moscow for the International Security Conference. Around 600 participants were in attendance in total. On the agenda were pressing topics of the day – Syria, North Korea, and NATO (North Atlantic Terroristic Organization) expansion Eastward. In this opening speech, Minister Shoigu emphasised that instead of a unified effort against international terrorism, Europe and the North Atlantic Alliance prefers to focus on non-existant threats from the East, paying off puppet leaders in the Baltic states especially. The recent accession of Montenegro into NATO, taking into account the vastly anti-NATO views of its Yugoslav neighbour, Serbia, precipitates a Balkan crisis of the future.

According to an investigation carried out by a Bulgarian journalist, weapons from a NATO member state (Bulgaria) have ended up in the hands of mercenary-terrorist gangs of jihadists in Syria.

In the report, a commander from the western-backed terrorist gang of the so called “Free Syrian Army” (deserters militarly incapable) claims the U.S.-led coalition is aware of this but chooses to look the other way.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said it is “bewildered and disappointed” over new US sanctions targeting eight Russian companies, including defense firms and pilot training academies, which the State Department claims engage in “proliferation” activity with Iran, North Korea and Syria.
Paul Graig Robers, former Assistant Secretary of US Treasury, talks to RT on the issue.

While the restrictions will cause “no serious problems” for Russia, they undermine the fight against global terrorism, which Washington has been claiming is its priority, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

“This step runs counter to the statements we hear from Washington that emphasize the fight against terrorism, in particular in Syria, where it has gained a foothold. On the contrary, it is completely at odds with such declarations and undermines the prospects of setting up comprehensive multilateral cooperation to destroy Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS,ISIL] and other terrorist groups that pose a threat to all countries, including the US,” Zakharova said.
“Washington again does the bidding of those who made a consistent destruction of Russia-US cooperation their main priority. These people have long been searching for enemies in the place where they don’t really exist. Such an approach does not obviously meet the security interests of the US,” Zakharova said………………………

Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned NATO’s attempt to “constantly provoke” Russia, through expansion and the placing of weapons “across national borders,” during an address to the Federal Security Service, in Moscow on Thursday.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (Russian):“Good afternoon, dear comrades. Our meetings in the framework of the annual board of the Federal Security Service allow us to analyse deeply and summarise the work of the department over the last year, it is also a good opportunity to comprehensively discuss the most important questions of national security generally.”

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (Russian):“Over the past year the situation in the world has not become more stable, has not improved. It is the opposite, many of the existing challenges and threats only worsened. There has been intensified military-political and economic competition between global and regional centres of influence and individual countries. If you look bloody conflicts are continuing in several are continuing bloody conflicts Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries. International terrorist groups are actively involved in them and in fact a terrorist army is receiving hidden and even explicit support from some states. At the NATO summit last July in Warsaw for the first time since 1989, Russia was named the main security threat to the Alliance, and dealing with it [Russia] was officially proclaimed as the new NATO mission, and the further expansion of the block is being undertaken with this particular aim. In fact, it was carried out before, but now they have found another argument, that seems more serious to them. The have sped up the process of the placement of strategic and conventional weapons across national borders. We are being provoked all the time. In plain words, they constantly provoke and tend to try to draw us into a confrontation. And attempts to interfere in our internal affairs, aimed to destabilise the social and political situation in Russia, do not stop. We also saw a serious escalation of the situation in the south-east of Ukraine recently. The aim of this escalation is clear: to abort the Minsk agreements. The current government in Ukraine is definitely not ready for a peaceful solution to this complex problem and rely on a military solution. Moreover, they are speaking in public about terrorist organisations, subversive activities, including in Russia. It could not, not disturb us. The events and circumstances mentioned, require particular attention and concentration of force from special and targeted structures in Russia, above all the Federal Security Service, primarily in the fight against terrorism.”

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (Russian):“The activity of terrorist groups should be identified and blocked, their financial base should be liquidated, as well as the activities of emissaries from abroad, their subversive activities on the internet should be suppressed, at the same time consider, of course, the Russian and international experience in this field.”

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (Russian):“We should take our anti-terror cooperation with foreign partners to the next level, in spite of all the difficulties, which are being formed in various areas of international life. First and foremost, of course, we have to strengthen our work with our partners in such organisations as the UN, the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organisation] and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Our common interest is the restoration of a dialogue with the intelligence services in the United States, of other countries and members of NATO. It is not our fault that it was broken and does not develop. It is obvious that in the counterterrorism area all the responsible states and international associations should cooperate, because even a simple information exchange on the sources and channels of terrorists funding, on the people involved or suspected of involvement in terrorism, seriously increases the effectiveness of our joint efforts.”

High-ranking Turkish officials have recently expressed their discontent with Washington failing to provide assistance to Ankara’s military operation in northern Syria, implying that NATO forces could even be asked to leave the Incirlik airbase. Political analyst Stuart Rollo told Radio Sputnik that Turkey “is testing the waters”.

“They want to test the waters, they want to see the reaction of the incoming Trump administration”, he said.

“Trump spoke a lot on his campaign about supporting the Kurds. He frequently cited their bravery, said that they were the most effective ally the US had in the region in the fight against [Daesh]. I think Turkey is a little bit worried that he might actually go and back up some of that campaign rhetoric with action”.

On Wednesday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu mentioned Incirlik, saying that the Turks wondered why the United States and its allies were using the base if they did not provide air cover for Operation Euphrates Shield, a major Turkish-led offensive in northern Syria. A day later, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin reiterated that Turkey had the right to close the base, but added that this issue was not on the agenda.

Rollo, a researcher in international security based at Sydney University, suggested that Ankara wanted to send a signal to Washington that it was not a given that the United States could continue to use the military facility “if they don’t begin to cooperate with Turkey against the Kurds”……………….

According to two reports coming out of Aleppo today, at least 14 U.S. Coalition military officers were captured this morning in an East Aleppo bunker by Syrian Special Forces (Syrian Spetsnaz).

This story was quietly leaked by Voltaire.net, who announced, “The Security Council is sitting in private on Friday, December 16, 2016, at 17:00 GMT, while NATO officers were arrested this morning by the Syrian Special Forces in a bunker in East Aleppo”.

Fares Shehabi MP, a prominent Syrian Parliamentarian and head of Aleppo’s Chamber of Commerce published the names of the Coalition officers on his Facebook page on the 15th December:

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on the bombing of a Syrian school in Idlib, as well as possible US’ deliveries of hardware to Syrian terrorist gangs during her weekly press conference.

“A number of international media outlets, including Independent and al-Jazeera, have immediately carried out an information attack on Russia, and accused Russia, Russian Aerospace Forces, Syrian Armed Forces, saying that the bombing was conducted by Russia and Syria,” Zakharova said.

“Russia has nothing to do with this horrible tragedy, this attack. This terrible tragedy requires immediate attention of all international institutions to its investigation,” Zakharova said.

Russian reconnaissance means have registered a US attack drone in the area where a school in Syrua’s Idlib had been bombed, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday. A US’ MQ-1B Predator drone has been seen in the area, the ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

No Russian aircraft entered the area over the Syrian Idlib, where the alleged strike took place, he added.

Moreover, Russian UAVs have not registered any signs of the destruction of the school’s roof or shell craters, Maj. Gen. Konashenkov said.

“The photograph published by AFP shows that only one wall of the school is damaged, and all the desks inside the classroom are in place. The outer fence seen through the hole has no traces of damage from bomb fragments. In a genuine airstrike this is physically impossible – the furniture would have been swept away by the blast wave, and there would have been damage marks on the classroom wall and the outer fence.”

(SFP-WP) – The real liars are always liars, even confronted with evidence, especially if they know they have the support of the media propaganda & omerta…
~~~
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned Belgian Ambassador Alex Van Meuwen to present him with proof that the Royal Belgian Air Force took part in strikes at the Hassajek village near Aleppo, Syria.

On October 21, Belgian Ambassador Alex Van Meuwen was summoned to Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the meeting with the Ambassador, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov said that it is puzzling that Belgium is continuing to pesistently deny the fact that the Royal Belgian Air Force performed a strike on the area near Aleppo on October 18, in consequence of which civilians died, according to a statement issued on Friday.

The Belgian diplomat was presented with proof of the Royal Belgian Air Force’s involvement in the bombardment of the Hassajek village.

It is stated that detailed information about technical aspects of the flight path of two F-16 jets was sent earlier to Belgium’s military attache in Moscow…>>>…

This could explain why NATO governments have been so anxious in recent weeks to halt the Syrian-Russian offensive on Aleppo. Could it be that they need to extricate their special forces embedded with terrorist-dominated militants?

Imagine the world headlines that not even compliant Western news media could suppress if the Syrian army with Russian air support liberated the last redoubt of al-Nusra Front only to find among the defeated jihadists professional troops belonging to the US, Britain, France or some other NATO member.

Washington and its Western allies who proclaim to be fighting terrorists and “only” supporting “moderate rebels” would be caught with their hands deep inside the cookie jar, so to speak. Embarrassing, to say the least, to have such a honeyed-lie exposed in glaring reality.

There’s something decidedly eerie about the current situation in the northern battleground city of Aleppo. On Tuesday night, a NATO air strike was reported on the village of Hassajek, near the city, in which at least six people – believed to be civilians – were killed. The Russian government says the strike was carried out by two Belgian F-16s fighter jets. What was that about? And why the silence from Washington and NATO over such a flagrant violation? Is somebody getting nervous?

Then the day before the humanitarian pause declared by Syrian and Russian forces came into effect on Thursday, sources in Aleppo told how busloads of militants had already begun leaving the city. Significantly, some of the vehicles had blacked-out windows. Syrian sources say that the passengers on those buses were not foreign jihadists, but rather were special forces from NATO countries. That claim has not been verified.

There are long-held suspicions that anti-government militants holding east Aleppo under siege for the past four years have been receiving covert, direct support from NATO special forces…>>>…

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian and Syrian radars proved that Belgian jets struck the Syrian village of Hassajek.

The Russian Defense Ministry will unveil flight path details of the Belgian Air Force jets at the time of the deadly strike on a village near Aleppo in Syria, Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Thursday.

Russia has effective air defense means to maintain round the clock monitoring of the air situation over almost entire Syria.
Besides us, Syrian air defense systems that have been restored over the past year control the airspace.

Not to be unfounded, today we will present information about the flight route and the actions of the Belgian Air Force and US Air Force aircraft in Syrian airspace on October 18, Konashenkov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry vowed to present detailed information about the operation of Belgian F-16 jets over Syria to Belgian authorities.

“The Belgian defense minister is either purposefully misleading the international community or the Belgian Defense Ministry jointly with the United States is deceiving the country’s authorities”, Konashenkov said.

“Either Steven Vandeput is purposefully misleading the Belgian and the international community, or his subordinates jointly with their US colleagues are deceiving the authorities of the Kingdom of Belgium”, Konashenkov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that two aircraft that took off from an airfield in Jordan belonged to the Belgian Air Force.

The aircraft that took off from Salti [Al-Azraq] airbase in Jordan have been immediately identified to be F-16, and their affiliation was established as that of the Belgian Air Force… … …

“In the helicopter at the moment of its sortie were military instructors from NATO countries”, Basurin said.

According to DPR intelligence, the helicopter crash landed in the area surrounding Krasngotovka.

Yesterday, DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko stated that the UAF attempted to attack DPR positions under the cover of a military helicopter, which was shot down but managed to land.

According to paragraph seven of the Minsk Memorandum from September 19th, 2014, the use of combat aircraft and drones is prohibited along the entire contact line designated for the ceasefire with the exception of OSCE SMM UAV’s.

Weekend massacre executed against Syrian troops atop Deir Ezzor’s Thardeh Mountain now looks like some kind of a murderous colonialist get-together as Australia, the UK and Denmark have all admitted their role in the unspeakable atrocity.

Their statements on the crime read just about identically, with each respective Imperialist stain on humanity claiming that they, like the American regime, didn’t “intend” to hit the SAA, that they “regret” what took place and that they offer their “sincere condolences” to the families of the innocent souls whom they had butchered.

The reason why this, also like Washington’s bullshit, does not hold even the weight of a termite, is because these are some of the bloodiest regimes to ever grace the stage of geopolitics.

The Australian settler regime wiped out hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people and played a key role in the overthrow of Indonesian revolutionary Sukarno as well as the Suharto coup regime’s aggression against Eastern Timor.

Denmark, for its part, once ran a hideous colonialist empire, with colonies of theft and mass murder in Africa, India and notably, the Caribbean, where the Jewish-dominated Danish West India Trading Company ran cruel schemes of slave-trading and sugar-thieving.

And Britain? Does one really need to enumerate how many countries that the London ZOG colonized, raped and ruined at the height of its colonialist dominance?

Judicial Watch proved it. Under a Freedom of Information Act request, Judicial Watch was able to obtain a (heavily redacted) copy of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) directive that initiated the creation of ISIS in 2012. The DIA report states,

Not even Judicial Watch seems to have appreciated the significance of this document, where its press release focused on the Benghazi attack. Recent releases of Hillary’s emails, moreover, confirm that taking out Assad has nothing to do with his alleged abuse of the Syrian people but because it will help Israel.

Just in case it has slipped anyone’s mind, Hillary was Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Barack was inaugurated in 2008 and steps down in 2016. It happened on their watch. It could not have happened without their approval. They really did create ISIS!

The chemical attacks on Syrian citizens on 21 August 2013 was meant to justify lobbing cruise missiles into Syria. Obama was ready, but Americans were not. And when the ploy was debunked by a 50-page dossier the Russians provided to the UN, they resorted to “Plan B”, which was the creation of ISIS by the DIA.
… … …
For those who may have missed the memo, 9/11 was brought to us by the CIA, the Neo-Cons in the Department of Defense (most of whom were dual US-Israel citizens) and the Mossad. Its objective was to transform US foreign policy from one in which we (at least, officially) never attacked any nation that had not attacked us first to one in which we would become the greatest aggressor nation in the world.

Wesley Clark, upon his return from serving as Supreme Commander, Allied Forces Europe (the military chief of NATO), learned the plan was to take out the governments of seven nations in the next five years, beginning with Iraq and Libya and ending with Syria and Iran…

Aside from the standard list of lies which US-led ‘Coalition’ representatives regularly spout regarding their so-called ‘moderate rebels’ (terrorists) in Syria, there is another key lie which is only barely holding Washington and London’s house of cards together – that is the idea that some of these ‘moderate rebels’ (terrorists) are somehow engaged in the grand crusade against ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh (all terms apply equally to ISIS). For all intents and purposes, this spurious western claim is a lie – one of many lies about Syria constantly being fed to the public by western politicians and media functionaries.

The reality, outside of the Washington-London “classified” reality bubble is that these US-NATO-GCC-backed ‘moderate rebels’ (terrorists) have, more or less, the exact same objectives as ISIS,and unless they are fighting over control over money or illicit black markets, their shared collective goal is the overthrow of the Syrian government in Damascus via ‘regime change’ and an end to a secular, multi-religious nation-state of Syria. Put simply: their flag designs and online brands may differ, but they are effectively one in the same. So it only stands to reason that if the US-NATO allies are wholeheartedly backing this rebel-terrorist ‘armed opposition’ conclave, then despite their highfalutin rhetoric, US-NATO allies are also supporting an end to the secular multi-religious nation-state in Syria.

Furthermore, as western-backed terrorist rebels share the same objectives as ISIS, then by extension – this also means that the US-NATO allies share the exact same goals as ISIS. Yes, that’s right: US-NATO forces have positioned themselves as natural allies of ISIS, alongside the ‘moderate rebel’ terrorists who have already received billions in western taxpayer-funded arms, equipment, training, intelligence support and cash.

Western and Eastern European leaders gathered to recite the same lines over and over again, justifying anti-Russian circumstances that they themselves facilitated.You won’t hear about the CIA funded Ukrainian coup, nor the subjugation of modern Ukraine to the IMF and the World Bank.You won’t hear about Biden’s son sitting on the board of Ukraine’s largest gas producing company Burisma, and other examples of financial colonization.You won’t hear about the referendum in Crimea that voluntarily sought to join Russia – with no sign of protest to this day.You won’t see an explanation of what the Minsk agreement is and who is party to it – nor will you see a breakdown of which side in Eastern Ukraine is attacking and which is defending.What is being asked for, in effect, to fully satisfy NATO, is nothing less than for Russia to simply stop existing.This is a cumulative result of Putin refusing to sell Russia to international Zionism.

Comparisons of the current NATO buildup to pre-WWII buildups, or to NATO when opposed to the Warsaw Pact, are amateurish. The THAAD and Patriot missiles are worthless – according to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) themselves; that’s why they tried to improve them with Iron Dome.

Meanwhile, those new NATO army “battalions” are inconsequential. The basic thrust behind the Pentagon’s moves under neocon Ash Carter continues to be to draw Russia ever further into Syria and Ukraine (as if Moscow actually was involved in, or wanted, a Ukrainian quagmire); trap Russia in proxy wars; and economically bleed Russia to death while crippling the bulk of oil and natural gas income to the Russian state.

Russia does not want – and does not need – war. Yet the “Russian aggression” narrative never stops. Thus it’s always enlightening to come back to this RAND corporation study, which examined what would happen if a war actually took place. RAND reached an “unambiguous” conclusion after a series of war games in 2015-2015; Russia could overrun NATO in a mere 60 hours – if not less – if it ever amounted to a hot war on European soil.

The Rand Corporation is essentially a CIA outpost – thus a propaganda machine. Yet it’s not propaganda to state the Baltic States and Ukraine would completely fall in less than three days before the Russian Army. However, the suggestion that additional NATO air power and heavily armored combat divisions would make a material difference is bogus.

Kurdish fighters allegedly backed by the US, have crossed the Euphrates River in Syria and have moved against fighters from the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS) holding the city of Manbij. The city is about 20 miles from Jarabulus, another Syrian city located right on the Syrian-Turkish border. Jarabulus too is held by ISIS.

The initial push toward Manbij came from the Tishrin Dam in the south, however, another front was opened up and is hooking around the city’s north – successfully cutting off the city and its ISIS defenders from roads leading to the Turkish border – including Route 216 running between Manbij and Jarabulus.

Planning an assault on an urban center requires that an attacking force cut off city defenders from their logistical routes. Doing so prevents the enemy from fleeing and regrouping, but also diminishes the enemy’s fighting capacity during the assault. It is clear that the fighters moving in on ISIS in Manbij have determined that Jarabulus and Turkey just beyond the border, constitutes the source of ISIS’ fighting capacity.

Western Media Admits ISIS Entering Syria From Turkey

Jarabulus is increasingly being referred to across the Western media as the “last ISIS border-crossing point into Turkey.” A 2015 article written by the Guardian’s Jonathan Steele titled, “The Syrian Kurds Are Winning!,” would explain that (emphasis added):

In July of this year the YPG, again with the aid of US airpower, drove ISIS out of Tal Abyad, another town on the border with Turkey. This meant ISIS had lost two of the three crossing points from Turkey through which it could bring foreign volunteers, finance, and weaponry to strengthen the jihad.
Idriss Nassan, the Kurdish spokesperson of the Kobanî canton, told me that the YPG now plans to liberate the last ISIS border-crossing point into Turkey at the town of Jarabulus.

Steeles’ article gives the impression that the US was actually trying to stop ISIS by helping the Kurds wage war inside of Syria. However Steele, for whatever reason, never addresses his own implications that ISIS is literally being reinforced from Turkey – a NATO-member since the 1950’s which hosts a US Air Force base at Incirlik, and who has allowed US, British, French, and Persian Gulf state intelligence agencies and special forces to operate along its border with Syria with impunity since the conflict began.

“I hope that I am wrong about war before November 4th. I wish I am wrong. I would be happy and relieved if I am wrong, but I felt that I had a duty to make public my fear that this would occur”. (Sheikh Imran Hosein)
~~~
Usually when somebody predicts the end of the world by such-and-such date, I don’t pay it any heed. However, Imran Hosein is a man who has made a lifetime study of Islamic eschatology, and whatever your views on that subject may be, I feel compelled to mention that I’ve run a few of Sheikh Hosein’s videos before and found his analyses on world affairs pretty solid.

So take it for whatever it’s worth: global war will begin by no later than November 4, 2016. Why the date in November has to do with the US presidential election.

In Hosein’s words: “They cannot take a chance that Donald Trump will become president. They cannot take that chance. Because Donald Trump says, ‘It makes no sense for us to have this antagonistic relationship with Russia.’”

If you would like to construe that as a ringing endorsement of Trump, I guess you’re free to do so, and maybe in some respects it is. But Sheikh Hosein isn’t the only one with such a view of Trump. (by Richard Edmondson)

France has deployed its special forces on the ground in northern Syria to advise rebels and help them fight Islamic State, a French Defense Ministry official has revealed to AFP.

“The offensive at Manbij is clearly being backed by a certain number of states including France. It’s the usual support – it’s advisory,” the official told the agency.

Until now, France admitted the presence of some 150 special forces in the region, all of them in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Manbij is a key strategic town under Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) control in northern Syria. It’s a waypoint between the Turkish border and the IS-held Raqqa.

The latest comment isn’t the first hint at France’s presence in Syria: last Friday, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the Public Senat TV channel that Paris was “providing support through weapons supplies, air presence and advice.”

The monstrous US military budget is a classic illustration of the proverb about not seeing the wood for the trees. It is such an overwhelming outgrowth, all too often it is misperceived.

In recent years, Washington’s military expenditure averages around $600 billion a year. That’s over half of the total discretionary spending by the US government, exceeding budgets for education, health and social security. It’s well over a third of the total world military annual spend of $1.7 trillion.

The incipient military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his farewell speech in 1961 has indeed become a central, defining feature of American society and economy. To talk of «American free-market capitalism» is a staggering oxymoron when so much of the country’s economy is wholly dependent on government-funded militarism.

Or put it another way: if the US military budget were somehow drastically reduced in line with other nations, the all-powerful military-industrial complex and the American state as we know it would collapse…

Alleged peace-maker John Kerry threatened to wage war-without-end on Syria – if the Middle East country does accept the US demand for regime change.

That’s hardly the language of a supposed bona fide diplomat who presents an image to the world as a politician concerned to bring about an end to the five-year Syrian conflict.

The US Secretary of State repeatedly sounds anxious to alleviate the appalling suffering of the Syrian nation, where over the past five years some 400,000 people have been killed and millions displaced as refugees.

Anyone who has not been brainwashed by Western media propaganda knows full well that the suffering of Syria has been caused by Washington and its allies sponsoring a covert war for regime change in that country.

In early 2011, Libya came under attack. The anti-Libya coalition included France, the United Kingdom, the feudal Gulf monarchies, the United States and other NATO countries. Although during the previous months, Muammar Gaddafi had visited the nations of Europe where he was welcomed as the head of a friendly State, the United Nations swiftly approved the coalition-sponsored U-turn, undertaken in the guise of humanitarian intervention to protect the Libyan people. Gaddafi was branded “a bloodthirsty, crazed dictator”, intending and carrying out war crimes to suppress a legitimate domestic revolt.

This narrative was part of a larger-scale Western strategy adopted to redesign the entire Middle East in accordance with its interests. Immediately after the start of the NATO campaign of air strikes, Paolo Sensini visited Tripoli as a member of the “Fact Finding Commission on the Current Events in Libya”. He then wrote a fully detailed account of the real reasons for the attack on Libya, and the outcome. This book outlines the historical background of the last hundred years and more, from the main phases of the Italian military occupation (1911-1943) to the dramatic events of our own times, including an account of the post-war monarchy and Qaddafi’s rise to power, the air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi ordered by Reagan in 1986, and the Lockerbie affair.

Sensini exposes the falsehoods propagated in 2011 of the alleged “mass graves” and “10,000 deaths”. He takes a close look at the “rebels in Benghazi” – goaded on by Islamic fundamentalists but organised, armed and financed by the West. The “rebels” provided the pretexts that West needed for approval of UN Resolution 1973 – the myth of ‘humanitarian’ intervention as embodied in the so-called “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine. This criminal intervention devastated Libya, unleashing chaos and a civil war unlikely to cease in the near future.

Sensini addresses what has followed in its wake: the 11 September 2012 murder of American Ambassador Chris Stevens, the role of Hillary Clinton, and the plight of untold waves of migrants seeking to flee the continental chaos that R2P has unleashed, resulting in thousands of deaths and drownings across the Mediterranean, and the potential destabilization of European states struggling to cope with the mass influx.

As US and NATO propaganda reaches another crescendo in Aleppo, it is important to remind ourselves of a few salient facts. First and foremost we need to understand that the prevailing force occupying Aleppo and terrorising civilians is US and NATO backed Al Nusra in the city itself and ISIS in Northern and Eastern outlying areas.

According to the media ‘Syria Campaign’, every missile that has targeted civilians in Aleppo has been dropped or fired by the Syrian Government forces.

Please note that their infographic is based upon information supplied by the SNHR another Soros backed NGO on the ground in Syria.

HRW, Amnesty International and assorted Humanitarian offshoots are on a ceaseless crusade against the SAA… … …

Norway’s plan to deploy its special forces in Syria to train bloodthirsty mercenaries and ruthless ‘moderate terrorists’, to steal the sovereignty to the Syrian people and try to reduce Syria in the same conditions of Libya today. Mission impossible.
(SFP)

Syria denounced the statements made on Monday by the Norwegian Prime Minister on her country’s intention to send 60 special forces soldiers to train what she called “Syrian fighters” under the pretext of fighting ISIS.

such a decision constitutes a blatant and unacceptable interference in states’ affairs and a flagrant violation of sovereignty, security and stability, stressing that it cannot be justified by saying that it’s part of combating terrorism since it hasn’t been conducted in cooperation with the Syrian government.

Syria calls on the international community and the Norwegian and global public opinion to take a stand against such irresponsible decisions that have resulted in the spread of terrorism in the region and the world, with terrorism striking in the hearts of European cities while their governments’ continue to practice imbalanced policies regarding the crisis in Syria and regarding the war on terrorism.

Encirclement of Russia: the war in Ngorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan: April 3, 2016: There have been military clashes between the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan since the night of Friday to Saturday. Many deaths are reported.

The strong fighting is reported between Martakert and Hadrut on the front line. The Armenian army based in Nagorno-Karabakh, mainly populated by Armenians,** reportedly shot down two drones, tanks and two helicopters according to sources of the Armenian news agency. Baku announced that the Armenian army has lost a number of soldiers.

Plan U.S.A.?

Is it because Armenia refused to become a NATO base?

According to the NATO website*** dated March 10, 2016 Armenia would be a basis for the establishment of partnerships. NATO would, therefore, try to support Armenia in its intent to keep Nagorno-Karabakh and to infiltrate the lines of Russian diplomacy?

Investigative journalist Yoichi Shimatsu looks at the criminal record of the Brothers Bakraoui, the ethnic Moroccan felons who allegedly bombed Brussels Airport, uncovering their links to Belgian police intelligence under NATO command and to the Israeli-run security firm ICTS, which recruited European youth for ISIS and its brutal Syrian paramilitary campaign for the oil majors.
(By Xiaoming Chai, Submitted by ‘The Old Sniper‘)

An RT Documentary crew filming in northern Syria has seen Islamic State (Daesh, IS, ISIS/ISIL) documents abandoned by retreating terrorists and found by the Kurds that, along with captured IS recruits, provide a stunning insight into IS oil trade.

The RT Documentary team did most of its filming in the town of Shaddadi, located in the Syrian province Hasakah, which has been partly overrun by IS jihadists.

Following the liberation of Shaddadi, which is home to some 10,000 people, RT filmed Kurdish soldiers walking around what used to be the homes of IS fighters and examining piles documents that had been left behind.

Some of the files seized at the scene turned out to be detailed invoices used by IS to calculate daily revenues from their oil fields and refineries, as well as the amount of oil extracted there. All the documents had Islamic State’s symbol at the top.

The locals attested that “the extracted oil was delivered to an oil refinery, where it was converted into gasoline, gas and other petroleum products. Then the refined product was sold,” the RT documentary’s author said.

“Then intermediaries from Raqqa and Allepo arrived to pick up the oil and often mentioned Turkey.”

Important information revealing the connection between IS and Turkey was provided by a Turkish militant previously captured by the Kurds.

The IS recruit said on camera that the terrorist group does, in fact, sell oil to Turkey…

(Finian Cunningham)
With the violent police seizure of Turkey’s biggest independent newspaper this weekend, the country has finally crossed the line to become a fully-fledged dictatorship.

For many months now, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been cracking down on media as part of a wider move towards an increasingly authoritarian regime under his ruling Justice and Development Party.

Under Turkey’s state constitution, freedom of media is supposed to be guaranteed from government interference.

Clearly, Turkey can no longer pretend to be a democratic state.

The constitution has been sacked in the most graphic way.

It is now a dictatorship where those who criticize the “ruler” are liable to receive prison sentences because they are either “terrorist supporters” or “insulting” his ego.

The increasingly despotic nature of Turkey under Erdogan is intimately bound up with his regime’s criminal aggression towards Syria.

Over the past five years, Erdogan has moved from covert sponsorship of terror proxies in Syria to a blatant role in waging aggression… … …

NOTICE TO READERS

These infos are not intended to be shocking or to glorify violence in any way. These articles/images/videos are for educational purposes only, for documenting and try to explain the backdrop of a historical ruthless and bloody war, whose characteristics and details are routinely distorted and smothered by the dominant media.